Willy Katzenstein

Stumbling blocks for Willy Katzenstein and his family from October 29, 2013

Moritz Willy Katzenstein (born September 12, 1874 in Bielefeld , † April 8, 1951 in London ) was a German lawyer, a leading figure in liberal Judaism in Westphalia and a politician of the German Democratic Party (DDP) .

Willy Katzenstein studied law and became a Dr. jur. PhD. He then worked as a lawyer and notary in Bielefeld. Here he was also politically committed to the liberal German Democratic Party in the magistrate. He was provincial chairman of the DDP. In 1920 he was elected to the provincial parliament of the province of Westphalia for the constituency of Bielefeld .

After the death of his uncle, the banker and long-time chairman of the Jewish community Moritz Katzenstein, he was elected in 1908 as his successor in the management committee of the Association of Synagogue Communities in Westphalia and on January 17, 1933 as head of the Jewish community in Bielefeld . Because of his Jewish faith, he was persecuted after the Nazis came to power .

In May 1939 he was able to bring his two daughters Marianne and Eva to safety on a Kindertransport to England. The Katzenstein couple followed their children into exile in London about three weeks later.

With the emigration of Katzenstein and Rabbi Hans Kronheim, who emigrated to the USA at the same time, the Bielefeld Jewish community lost its highly qualified, energetic dual leadership in spring 1939.

Since October 2013, four stumbling blocks in Viktoriastraße 24 in Bielefeld have been remembering the Katzenstein family. Family members from the USA, London and Berlin came to the relocation, including 88-year-old Eva Roberts, née Katzenstein: When we were leaving the Dutch border, we jumped up with relief and shouted: We're out.

Publications

• Is the Liberal [Jewish] Association on the right track? In: Liberal Judaism. Monthly for the Religious Interests of Judaism, 1st year, 1909, No. 13, pp. 297–302. Retrieved May 2, 2019 . 
• Baptism Judaism and Anti-Semitism. In: Liberal Judaism. Monthly for the religious interests of Judaism, year 1914, No. 6/7, pp. 131-134. Retrieved May 16, 2019 . 
• Ghetto, Emancipation and the Jewish Presence. In: CV newspaper . March 1, 1934, accessed April 30, 2019 . 
• A word about the new inner building. In: Jewish general newspaper. January 23, 1935. Retrieved April 30, 2019 . 
• Are Jewish group settlements [abroad] possible? In:Jüdische Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialpolitik, August 1938, p. 122.Retrieved on May 16, 2019. 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willy Katzenstein: The German sugar industry and sugar taxation in their historical development presented by Willy Katzenstein (doctorate). Haude & Spener'sche Buchhandlung Berlin, 1897, accessed on May 16, 2019 . 
2. ^ Arno Herzig, Karl Teppe, Andreas Determann: Displacement and Destruction of the Jews in Westphalia , Ardey-Verlag Münster 1994, p. 18
3. ^ Brigitte Decker (ed.): Homesickness for Bielefeld. Displaced or deported: children from Jewish families remember . Verlag Gieselmann Bielefeld 2007, pp. 136-141 ISBN 978-3-923830-59-6
4. ↑ Joachim Uthmann: Commemoration of a Jewish family who fled. Stumbling blocks laid in front of the former Katzenstein house - for the first time in the presence of someone directly affected . In: Neue Westfälische Bielefeld, October 30, 2013

literature

• Newspaper report: A fighter for religious-liberal Judaism. For the 60th birthday of Dr. Katzenstein-Bielefeld. In: Jüdisch-Liberale Zeitung. September 7, 1934, accessed August 3, 2019 . 
• Alfred Bruns (Ed.), Josef Häming (compilation): The Members of the Westphalia Parliament 1826–1978 (= Westphalian source and archive directories, Volume 2). Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Münster 1978, p. 369.
• Max P. Birnbaum: State and Synagogue, 1918–1938: a history of the Prussian State Association of Jewish Communities (1918–1938), Volume 38 of the series of scientific papers of the Leo Baeck Institute, Leo Baeck Institute, ISSN 0459-097X, 1981, ISBN 9783167437728 , P. 116, digitized
• Monika Minninger, Joachim Meinert, Friedhelm Schäffer: Anti-Semitically persecuted people registered in Bielefeld 1933–1945. A documentation of individual Jewish fates . Volume 4 of Bielefeld's contributions to urban and regional history, Bielefeld 1985, p. 113
• Joachim Meynert, Friedhelm Schäffer: The Jews in the city of Bielefeld during the time of National Socialism, Volume 3 of Bielefeld's contributions to city and regional history, p. 29, 1983.